I am using a Digitrax Super Chief and am wanting to program some Atlas locos. It has been over a year sense I have done anything with the layout and am having trouble remembering...When programing an Atlas loco don't I need a 1000 ohm resister in line to the program track? I talked with the Digitrax people at the OKC train show last Dec. about it and I think that is what they told me but thought I better check before I fried something. Thanks, mike
Depends what decoders are in them. If it's the cheapy Lenz one they used for a while, then yeah, a 1K resistor will help. Try it first without. Even if it won't read back, it might still be taking the programming. It won't fry anything putting a 1K resistor across the track. Just make sure one lead of the resistor isn't actually shorting out the track. Even shorting the program track shouldn't fry anything, but a) don't testthat theory and b) it won't work at all even if nothing is damaged
Or just program on the main (OPS). Although being low end decoders they might not even support ops mode programming.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
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Thanks, I have installed all Digitrax decoders and if I remember correctly it will not take the programing at all without a resister. Does the resister need to be installed in one of the wires from the Digitrax to the programing track or does it need to be installed between the two wires?
You should not need a resistor to program Digitrax decoders on a Digitrax system. That's kind of odd.
The resistor goes across the program track - in parallel. One lead to one track, one lead to the other. Or if careful, you can bend the leads and stick one in with the wire for program a and one in with the wire for program b.
That is where my memory failed me (again). When I was asking about programing them at the show they did have the Lentz decoders in them and I have sense changed them to Digitrax. I bought a resister a long time ago for that purpose and now I remember I was going to install alligator clips on each end of the resister so I could simply clip it to the rails on my program track when needed. Thanks so much for the help. Mike
I'm not sure why you'd have to add any sort of resistor to the programming track if you are trying to program a simple non-sound decoder, but I don't know anything about the capabilities (or lack thereof) of fthe Super Chief system.
The only reason I'm posting is to ask if you are trying to program an Atlas engine that has the dual function DCC decoder in it, or one of the originals that required you to move the jumper plug from one location to the other to go from DC to DCC?
maxman I'm not sure why you'd have to add any sort of resistor to the programming track if you are trying to program a simple non-sound decoder, but I don't know anything about the capabilities (or lack thereof) of fthe Super Chief system. The only reason I'm posting is to ask if you are trying to program an Atlas engine that has the dual function DCC decoder in it, or one of the originals that required you to move the jumper plug from one location to the other to go from DC to DCC?
Some decoders, particularly those low-end Lenz ones used previously by Atlas and still used in Bachmann DCC OnBoard locos don't seem to put enough of a load on the program track when generating their acknowledgement pulse. They're suppsoed to be perfectly NMRA compliant and Digitrax often gets blamed, but I've seen peopel with other DCC systems have the same problem. Adding the resistor increases the load on the program track connections just enough to allow the ack pulse from the decoder to be seen.
rrinkerSome decoders, particularly those low-end Lenz ones used previously by Atlas and still used in Bachmann DCC OnBoard locos don't seem to put enough of a load on the program track
Okay, thanks for that. I had never seen this problem at home or at the club with an Atlas engine, but it's good to know.
Again, the only reason I posted in the first place was that I was curious what type of Atlas engine he was trying to program as this was not stated.